Formatted transcript from above:
Beth Rigby: Deputy Prime Minister, you’ve been accused of dodging a £40,000 tax bill on your new home on the South coast. You said it was your main home while also claiming your constituency home in Ashton was your main home for other purposes. Do you just want to clear this up? What’s going on?
Angela Rayner: Yeah. First of all, Beth, it’s been quite a distressing time for my family. I have a court order that was in place around confidentiality regarding my son, my family and my divorce proceedings that happened in 2023.
And therefore, I wasn’t able to give a full account of the circumstances of our complex living arrangements. That order was lifted last night. I applied to have the order lifted so that I could give people the information.
In 2020, my son had an award and a trust was set up by the court to deal with his finances as part of that award, with a legal trustee. And in 2023, when me and my husband divorced, the decision was because that home was adapted to support my son, who has lifelong disabilities as a result of that injury that occurred to him, that trust was set up and they decided that they would take on the property so that me and my husband could have a nest in arrangement where we could provide for my child in our family home, which is our family home and remains our family home. So when I’m looking after the children, I go back to the family home. And then when my ex-husband is looking after children, he does. And it was done primarily to support my son with his additional needs and to provide stability for them during the divorce. And that was the arrangement that we put in place.
I then went to purchase, took my life savings, basically out of the property, the 25 per cent that I still owned within the property, took that money out so that I could purchase with a mortgage the place in Hove. And I took, you know, advice, on that. And I relied on that legal advice that I received that said that I was liable to pay the standard stamp duty.
Subsequently to that with all of the media reports that have been coming out, I took expert counsel advice on all of my affairs to ensure that everything was done proper and that expert counsel said that the advice that I received was inaccurate because of the trust. I don’t own the property. That is true. I only own one property that is mortgaged like most people. But because of the nature of the trust that was set up by the court, that I would be liable to pay the additional stamp duty.
As soon as I knew that that was the case, I have alerted and referred myself to the independent adviser on the ministerial code to ensure that they can look transparently at what has happened, and also contacted HMRC to say that, there is additional tax owing on this, and that I’m prepared to pay that and fully comply with the HMRC as well.
Beth Rigby: So the accusations that you didn’t pay no stamp duty on Hove, they’re actually accurate. You didn’t?
Angela Rayner: They are accurate. Yes. They’re accurate in a different sense. I think the accusations were that I set up a trust and I flipped it to try and avoid paying it. But actually the complex area of the trust which the advice that I relied upon didn’t pick that up. The leading tax counsel who has subsequently looked at it has gone into that and said that actually, because of that, it did remain my sole property and the trust wasn’t set up as accusations have been made for me to try and flip...
Beth Rigby: Dodge tax...
Angela Rayner: Dodge tax.
Beth Rigby: So, you weren’t trying to dodge tax?
Angela Rayner: No, the trust was set up by a court to provide for my son after an injury.
Beth Rigby: In your statement, you say I deeply regret the error has been made. I’m committed to resolving the matter, and I have referred myself to the independent adviser on ministerial standards. It’s just two more follow ups for that. Did you consider resigning over this?
Angela Rayner: I’ve been in shock, really, because I thought I’d done everything properly, and I relied on the advice that I received and I’m devastated because I’ve always upheld the rules and always have done. And always felt proud to do that. I feel, you know, that it is devastating for me and the fact that the reason why those confidential clauses were in place was to protect my son, who, through no fault of his own, he’s vulnerable, he’s got this life changing, lifelong conditions and I don’t want him or anything to do with his day to day life, to be subjected to that level of scrutiny because it’s his and my ex-husband that is... It’s Not… it’s not fair on them. Often my family is dragged in because of what my role is and what I do. But I try to uphold the high standards, and that’s why I’ve referred myself so that the independent advice can look at everything.
Beth Rigby: You talked about how hard it was to disclose this. Was there a moment as a mum, not as Angela Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister where you thought I’d rather just quit this than have to actually explain about my son, who I’m trying to protect, did you think about just packing it in rather than having to do this now?
Angela Rayner: I spoke to my family about it. I spoke to my ex-husband, who has been an incredibly supportive person because he knows that all I’ve done is try and support my family and help them.
Beth Rigby: Okay. But you did think about, should I pack it in for the sake of the family, but your family are backing you to come out today and explain this?
Angela Rayner: The number one, the number one priority for me and my ex-husband has always been to support our children and do the best thing for our children.
Beth Rigby: So just to be clear, you’ve... I need to wrap it now because you’ve got to go to Prime Minister’s Questions. But just to be clear, you’ve referred yourself to the standards commissioner. You’ve contacted the tax revenue and said you could be liable for more tax. Presumably you deeply regret this because of potentially the fallout for you? Do you think your position, Angela Rayner on, even though you’ve explained it, do you think it’s sustainable? Do you think you can carry on? Particularly as housing minister?
Angela Rayner: Well, I made a mistake based upon the advice that I relied upon that I received at the time, and a leading expert has now said that advice was wrong. I think hopefully most people can see, if you take, if you rely on advice given to you by lawyers and you follow that process and then you find out that that process is wrong and that advice is wrong, I’m rectifying it at the earliest opportunity. People make mistakes, but I conducted myself in trying to do the right thing, and I hope that people can see that.
Beth Rigby: Okay. So legally, you are referring yourself, but does it pass the sniff test? I guess that’s the question.
Angela Rayner: Well, that will be for the adviser to look at all of the information that I’ve supplied them.